Smile

With Valentine in just a few days, I needed to create some a card for my Love!  Mary-Ann here today, breaking out some Fancy Pants paper, watercolors, die cuts, stamps, twine, pearl pen and stickles!  For the base of my card, I used watercolor paper.  I cut it to the size I wanted to fit within my Fancy Pants Glassine Bag.  Since I am not mailing this gem, I can do what I want!  I dug out my watercolors and painted to my liking.  I chose only two colors.  You can use any type of watercolor, gelato, or colored pencils that you have on hand.  I layered my papers, backed my tag with foam and cut my dies.  I just love Wplus9 Heart Stackers.  Once my papers were layered, I added Ice White pearl drops from my pearl pen and Cotton Candy Stickles.

I then chose the colors for my envelope staying with the same color combo as my card.  

This is simple and quick.  I hope you did out your stash and create a thoughtful card for the loves in your life.

Fancy Pants -Be Loved Large Tags	Fancy Pants - Be Loved Flair	Fancy Pants - Be Loved 6x6 Paper Pad	Fancy Pants - Glassine Bags with Sticker Sheets	Wplus9 Design Studio - Clear Cut Stacker Dies - Hearts
Wplus9 Design Studio - Quite Like You Stamp Set	Jillibean Soup Stampables - Doilies	Stickles - Cotton Candy	Mono Adhesive Tape Runner - Permanent	Scotch Foam Mounting Tape
Tim Holtz - Distress Watercolor Cardstock

Words Can't Express - a Journal page

Hello, everyone!  It's Broni here and I have a journal page to show you today.  I don't often do multi-media pieces; I'm more of a card maker.  But this past weekend I decided it was time!

I started out knowing which colors I was going to use: pinks, olive green and kraft, and that I wanted the page to have a Valentine/love theme.  And that's all I knew! So I decided the best way to start was to pull out my Distress ink pads and go to work on my craft sheet.

Let me show you the finished page, then I'll walk you through the creative process.

I smushed (yes, that's a creative word) my ink pads - Worn Lipstick, Spun Sugar, and Crushed Olive- onto my craft sheet.  I spritzed it several times with water using my Ranger mini-mister.  Then I turned my journal over and laid it down into the ink.  I pressed it down a little to let it soak the ink up.

I lifted it up, dried it with my heat tool and repeated the process until I had the ink coverage I wanted.

I took a background script stamp (not on a wood or acrylic block), inked it with some Frayed Burlap ink and randomly stamped it across the page.  I think it's easier to use a large stamp this way and I get more random impressions that way, which is just what I wanted.

Then I pulled out my new TCW Mini Mariposas 6x6 template and used it to sponge a couple of pretty butterflies onto the page with Worn Lipstick.

I sponged on some Crushed Olive ink through another TCW 6x6 template (that I LOVE) - Mini Funky Tags.  Those are the all of the olive images that you see.

Next, I did a little stamping: Keys in Frayed Burlap; hearts in Worn Lipstick; and the sentiment in Archival Coffee ink (because that's the one thing that I didn't want to lose it's distinctness if I decided to spritz on more water at any given point).  I drew a larger heart around my sentiment too.

I took a dark brown watercolor pencil and shaded around the hearts and butterflies and smudged the shading using a paper stump and some odorless mineral spirits.

I used a magenta pencil to color in around the edges of the heart I drew and smudged that as well.

Next I applied some Studio 490 Embossing Paste through the Mariposas template and allowed it to dry thoroughly.  When it was dry I very lightly sponged on some Worn Lipstick ink, then used my finger to dab on some Star Dust Stickles.  I also dab the Stickles in several other places too!

The last thing I added was some hearts that I'd cut using my Silhouette.  The border of hearts was cut using ivory cardstock.  I sponged some Frayed Burlap on them and now they look like they were made with kraft paper, don't they?  They're also popped up using some Scotch foam mounting tape.  I love how the open hearts die cut connects the drawn/stamped hearts!

And that's it!  This page took a little while to create, but I had so much fun doing it that the time just flew by!  I got a little impatient at times letting the ink dry, so I just pressed the book closed to let the opposite page absorb some of the wet ink.  And I tested out the Embossing Paste on that page as well. Now I have a new journal page already started!!

Here's the finished page again.

If you made it through this entire post I commend you, and thank you for your patience!!  I just didn't want to leave out any of the details.

I hope you've enjoyed reading about my process!  Thanks so much for stopping in today!

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A Moment of Magic

Hello, everyone!  Its Broni here.  I hope you all had a most wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday.  I know I’m still stuffed!

Today I’d like to show you a card with a background I created using Distress inks and the Dylusions Dotted Flowers stencil.

I used several sponge daubers (I keep one for each color) and some Distress inks in Broken China, Frayed Burlap, and Walnut Stain to ink through my Dylusions Dotted Flowers stencil onto some light blue cardstock. I sponged the flower on the edge as well as randomly spacing the dots over the background.  I also sponged around the edges with Frayed Burlap after distressing it with my Tonic scissors.

I used my Frayed Burlap Distress Stain to darken the edges of my kraft colored mat layer.  I like that I can get a distinct line of color using it.

The tree from the WPlus9 Woodgrain Silhouette stamp set was inked in Walnut Stain and stamped onto some kraft cardstock, then sponged on the edges with Frayed Burlap as well.  I stamped the butterfly from the same stamp set in blue ink onto white cardstock and cut it out, then added Star Dust Stickles to make it super sparkly!  It’s popped up on Scotch foam mounting tape.

My sentiment is from the Dylusions The Right Words stamp set.  I love that you can stamp them and use them together or cut them apart, as I did, and use them however you want!

Thanks for stopping by today!  Have a wonderful weekend!

Distress Halloween Tag

Hello, everyone!  It's Broni here and today I'm showing you a Halloween tag I made using lots and lots of Distress inks!
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I printed my little Dragon Cutie image, cut her out, and colored her with my Copic markers.  I also added a second colored layer of vellum to her wings.

The manila tag was sponged heavily with Crushed Olive, Dried Marigold, and Spiced Marmalade Distress inks then spritzed with some Dylusions spray inks in Pure Sunshine and Fresh Lime.  The entire outer edge was sponged with Black Soot Distress ink.

Then I lightly stamped the Honeycomb background stamp from Market Street Stamps in Black Soot Distress ink and added some swirls with Black Diamond Stickles.

I also stamped the Dylusions sentiment from The Right Words in Black Soot and cut it out.
Finally I added some bling, Halloween tapes and ribbons and mesh to complete my tag.

I hope you like it!

Thanks so much for dropping in!  See you soon!

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Let's Hold Hands

Hello, eP friends!  It's Broni and I'm your host today!  I made a cute card with a clean design to share with you!

I recently received a goodie box from eP with all sorts of scrumptious crafting supplies.  And I couldn't wait to play with this Lil' Sweet Peps stamp set with coordinating Sweet Pieces Snapshot Fun die.

I stamped the little girl and the 3 flowers, colored them up with my Copic markers (shown below), and cut them out.  The snapshot die is awesome!  I use wax paper between my dies and cardstock when I cut them to avoid the "dirty" edges that dies will sometimes leave.  When I pulled the snapshot frame from the die, the wax paper was still on it and I couldn't believe how much it really looked like a true "Polaroid" picture frame.  So I used a couple of tiny, strategically placed, dots of Ranger Glossy Accents to  permanently adhere it.

Can you see the slight shine to it?  Very cool!  You could also just use some glossy paper!  I also used some Ranger Stickles (Aqua and Black Diamond) to give the flowers some sparkle.

The patterned paper is from the Basic Grey What's Up 6x6 paper pad and I thought it lent just the right amount of whimsy to complement the images.  I used some foam tape to mount the girl to the frame and the frame to the card.  Then I stamped the check list and attached it.  How cute is it??  I used a Copic marker to check the "Let's hold hands" box!

Lastly, I tied it all up with 3 different colors of twine (Mandarin Orange, Caribbean, and Charcoal).

That's it!  This is a fun card, and wouldn't the check box sentiment be perfect for Valentine's Day cards?

Thanks for stopping in!

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